The Reluctant Detectives

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Chapter Twenty-one


As soon as they arrived back at Hogwarts, Hermione went to work on the testing she had been thinking of since the moment the envelopes had been put into her hands. Severus went to see Minerva to check if all was still standing, as it were, and to give Hermione the much needed time to do as she wanted before he dragged her to bed.


It was when she was screaming in triumph that Severus walked into her lab. Jumping up and down, she rushed over to him.


“It matched!” she announced. “The DNA on the letter Harry received matched the DNA of the man that killed Viviana Templeton!”


“Excellent,” he said. “Bed.”


Hermione seemed to come off the high she was on. “But I wanted to do some more work so…” When he shook his head slowly no, she murmured, “Not even an hour more?”


“Not even a minute,” he murmured. “You see, witch, I want you in my bed.”


“You do?” she asked coyly.


“Yes, as odd as it may sound, I do. But you are going to have to wait to…what is it that young wizards say? Oh yes, you are going to have to wait to get your sex thing on.” She burst out into peels of laughter. “I’m tired, Hermione. I’ve had a very trying day. I want to go to bed with my witch. It isn’t much to ask.”


The laughter faded as she murmured, “Okay.”


Severus watched Hermione getting ready for bed with the same efficiency as she did much of everything. She had a set list of things to do in order to get ready for bed and nothing got left off the list. Shower, brush teeth two minutes, rinse out mouth, brush and put up hair into braids, and moisturize skin. And all this was before she got dressed in her nightgown. That’s if he had permitted her to wear any, he thought, turning back her side of the bedclothes, as she made her way naked over to where he was waiting.


She slipped under the blankets, curling up on her right side, as she was prone to do at first. He turned out the lights, laying on his back and waited. Five minutes later she was sprawled over his chest, her face pressed to his throat, and letting out a contented sigh.


“Good night, Severus,” she whispered, closing her eyes and drifting off into one of the first sound sleeps she had in years.


***


It was bright and early the next morning that Hermione was standing in front of the prototype for the new integrated memory interaction device. The twins had given it a run through and had given it their thumbs up.


“It works like a charm!” George told her. “It even has a few things you didn’t ask for.”


“Like pausing the action if you want to study something. There’s reverse as well as fast forward!” Fred exclaimed. “You are going to make a mint with this!”


She frowned, but said nothing. Hermione hadn’t come up with the idea to make money. No, it had been to solve a crime. But if there could be money to be made, what then, she asked herself. It wouldn’t feel right. Not if it was put to good works…


“Merlin! You just had to mention the potential profit didn’t you?” George hissed to Fred. “I can see the wheels turning in her head now! She’s going to give it all away. Just you see!”


“I was thinking of a fund that will help the people that were hurt by the bombings,” she said quietly. “To help them pick themselves up again.”


“But…” Fred started.


“If it had been one of your brothers, would you want me to profit from their deaths?” she asked quietly.


Letting out a long sigh he murmured, “No.”


“How bloody Gryffindor of you, Miss Granger,” Lucius told her, as he joined them at the entranceway of the prototype. “Money is money!”


“So you are telling me that you would be fine with me making money off, let’s say, Draco’s death?”


“Yes! I would want you earning every bit you could,” he told her.


“So you could take me to court to sue me for everything I had made?” she guessed.


“I’m a former Slytherin, not an idiot,” he muttered. “Where is Severus?”


“He has a school to run,” Hermione said. “He told me that he would be here as soon as he could, but to go on without him if we absolutely are too eager to wait for him.” She looked at her watch, tapping her foot with impatience for all of thirty seconds before she declared, “Okay, lets go!”


“I am amazed,” Severus said from behind her. “That you waited even that long.”


“Patience is a virtue I want no acquaintance with at the moment, thank you very much,” she stated, sounding as excited as a child about to go to a toy store. “I want to see it!”


“You heard the witch,” Severus drawled. “Let’s go.”


Hermione stepped past the threshold not knowing what to expect, but seeing what she did wasn’t it. There in the center of a huge bed was none other than one of the twins with what appeared to be Katie Bell. A very naked, sexually active Katie Bell in the middle of what looked to be a very uncomfortable position.


Clearing her throat she murmured, “Severus…”


“I’ll show you how it’s done later,” he muttered, but then snapped, “Gentlemen! Change this memory out for the first event.”


Laughing the twins did just that and the scene around them shifted to that of Diagon Alley. It was like the very day of the bombing, she thought, as she looked up to the sky. Even down to the weather, she thought pulling her jacket a little tighter.


“Do I walk over to where I want to go or what?”


“Pull out your wand and state place, not to mention time. That’s very important, Miss Granger. Don’t forget that,” Lucius told her.


“Okay.”


She pulled out her wand and before she knew it they were in the room with the bomb that would have to have been set off by the wizard himself. Hermione looked around what could only have been a storage room and ended up looking outside the dirt covered window as well, for all the good it did.


“This is the bomb that didn’t do as it was supposed to do,” she told them. “Whomever did it, had to have done it by wand. How far away would he have to have been to do so?”


“Across the street,” Lucius murmured. “If they were powerful enough.”


“And if they weren’t?” she asked.


“The same building,” Severus answered that time.


A quiet “Damn” had them all turning to look at a hooded man looking over the bomb. “Cheap clock,” he complained, even as he took out his wand and put up the death eater symbol on the wall. “I guess I’ll have to do it myself. A hero’s work is never done.” This had him laughing to himself, as he rushed out of the room. Within the next seconds, the room was ablaze.